Who the fuck is this guy? A quick look at the post history reveals nothing but nonsense (links to google.com? WTF?), and a quick look in Google for his website's name reveals similar attempts at spamming other community-based sites (quite poorly, if I might add). The website itself doesn't seem too harmful and it seems actually written by a human being instead of by a random bot, but the fact that it has dozens of hyperlinked words makes me doubtful.

Maybe his site is an evil plot by the Chinese government to produce lots of random gibberish in English and make web surfers in the decadent west read it. Sooner or later he by sheer luck he is bound to hit on some English specific Gödel Sentence that causes the evil Americans to have a simultaneous brainstorm. Then China can take over the world.

I would continue posting, but there's a good documentary [imdb.com] I've just finished downloading off conspiracytorrents.net, and I really should watch it.

"However," noted anonymous internet sources, "probing speculation of a possible Chinese antitrust probe were rumored to have been widespread on areas of the internet outside of the China Firewall." The Redland, Shenainiganghei based office confirmed that "plans are just that -- plans -- and not promises of updates, upgrades, releases, or official actions." US officials noted that this statement was delivered by a Chinese intellectual property rights "enforcer", and not the more common Western "Czar". Said t

Living in China, you realize pretty quickly that everything is about who you know, and how much "guanxi" you have. Literally, your network of people that you can call on. You can bet that Microsoft knows some people fairly high up in more than one government department in China, and has built up quite a lot of guanxi.

If I had to guess, I would say that someone was getting annoyed with Microsoft on a personal level, or Microsoft was trying to get around paying someone what they thought they deserved, who the

American English is going down the tubes.
Should the headline read There is no anti-trust probe into Microsoft.
(into Microsoft operations).
In the rest of the non-USA world, the word on is reserved for on or off topic, or sitting on a chair, being on time, standing on a podium, but writing about....
So, I want to write about the word on.

"Where Laws?" I am responding to previous comment.
If the Bush administration doesn't like you, even if you are an American born, it can send you to Guantanomo to be incarcerated without trial or ability to get help. Just like the Chinese, you are either "for me or against me".

Hrmm... if a majority of the software in china is pirated, then can a company really hold a "monopoly" there? MS might have a majority of the desktop market(I'm not sure if they do), but they didn't do this by actually selling their products and making too much of a profit(in china at least). Anyone have any market numbers in terms of MS and how much they make off the chinese market?

However, isn't that kind of like dumping? Put your product out on the market, for less than it costs to make it, so that people will use it, allowing you to take over the market. Even assuming that people have legit copies of windows, they are still dumping copies of Office, and many other programs that don't come included with computers. By tolerating the piracy, they have been able to use their large monopoly, and vast piles of cash to get a stranglehold on the desktop market.

The thing is, when some agency cracks down on at least some of the people who run pirated copies of Windows, those people will be faced with a choice: pay up or cease using Windows. If Windows is required for interoperability with parties you exchange information with, paying for Windows may be your best strategy. So even if there is rampant piracy, as long as there is _some_ incentive to pay for Windows, Microsoft wins. And the combination of lock-in and piracy provides such an incentive.

In China-Speak.. this is most probably the beginning of negotiations with Microsoft on various issues.
It is not unusual for them to plant stories in the state run media outlets as a warning / thread, followed by an official denial.

1. Leak potential new legislation to very unreliable media outlet2. Measure public reaction3a. if extremely negative then deny it, it came from a very unreliable media outlet after all!3b. if only mildly negative then proceed4. ???5. Profit

He's saying Microsoft doesn't have servers for its Instant Messenger or Email services inside China, not that there are no Windows servers inside China.

The point being that your data won't be snarfed, at least in the absence of a court order from the government.

FT: Microsoft announced a policy last week to only remove blogs from its services in China if it receives a proper legal order. By in the absence of the rule of law, surely you're not going to get a proper court order?

BG: We're going to get a government order before we do anything. It's actually very clear who gives these orders. They haven't authorised us to be a news service, so the information departments say that is a news/information thing that is not within the writ of your activities. We're not the first media-related entity to have some activity in China.

FT: Do you keep information on servers inside China?

BG: Our servers are all outside China. This whole thing of inside versus outside China, I never understand that, it somehow comes up in the Google discussion. I don't get that at all. This is not about where the servers are. We don't have servers inside China, we just don't. It may be that for responsiveness at some point we'll do that, but that's not the way we work today.

1) Tibet2) inherent right to free speech3) right to decide how many children you have4) rights inherent to human beings.

5) Taiwan

I don't think I'm going to trust China on what it says does or does not exist.

I don't trust them either. But I think they're telling the truth here. The leaked that there would be an antitrust probe. Microsoft contacted them and made some sort of concession. Then they denied the rumours. It's a negotiating tactic.

In response to 2 - 4, there simply aren't any such things. We've just collectively as a western world decided that they are good things to have. China disagrees. Unless you care to explain to me why there are such things?

All three of those in the list are the natural state of existence if no one were to interfere.Collectively, as a western world, we've decided to claim we don't interfere.

Article 51. The exercise by citizens of the People's Republic of China of their freedoms and rights may not infringe upon the interests of the state, of society and of the collective, or upon the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens.

Actually, the western world does interfere. You can be sued if you "insulted" somenoe when his idea is "evil" in your eyes. And you're "spreading hate" if you speak of some "hate" that's natrually a product of history even if you're not going to do anything extreme. Basically, these "sounding good" law is not only not solving any problem, but boost the hate and disagreement and let it increase over time because of the control in speech. If you believe something and "respect" someone that you see as wrong, y

Just a comment on that. On one side, I have heard several comments regarding how Chinese are spreading (people have even used the work "Invading") all the countries, and that they should stay out of America/UK/Europe/Mexico/etc...

On the other side I read people like you whining about the government policy for overpopulation control.

Someone has to do something to stop the over population of a country, and the only one who can do it is the government of such a coun

I hate to see people criticize China's one child policy. Without it, China maybe now facing extreme case of food shortage. So, instead of becoming another poor nation that need international aids, it sacrifice as a nation and bootstrapped itself into self sustainable. I like to see the same level of sacrifice from you and your country. No, if we stop polluting the world, we might harm our economy, that's bull.

Yes, you do inherent right to free speech, the government just ignore you. So, what's the diff

1) evolution2) inherent right to habeas corpus3) right to decide what to do with your legally purchased mp3s4) rights inherent to human beings (privacy, not subject to torture, etc)

The US also says there's...1) WMD in Iraq2) evidence that earth was created 2,000 years ago3) rights by content provider to manage your legally purchased mp3s4) rights by Disney to extend copyright terms for 20 years

I don't think I'm going to trust the US on what it says does or does not exist.

China says there is no independent Tibet, and from where I stand it is very obvious that they are right. China has complete control over Tibet, just like the US has complete control over land areas that previously used to belong to other populations.

2) inherent right to free speech

Same with many other countries, with restrictions on libel, slander, hate speech, "confidential" information, etcetra. Although I agree that China does take a rather extreme view to the whole "subvert the goverment" stance, and disagree very much with them on this issue.

3) right to decide how many children you have

Atleast one country has understood that the earth can support only so many people. As a primary instinct of humans is to procreate it isn't strange that you have to rely on societal organisations to limit that activity.

Of course, christians would rather prefer that the world became overcrowded with poor miserable people than remained decently populated with content people. (Sorry, that was a jab against religious anti-abortists)

4) rights inherent to human beings

First of all, inherent is deceptive word as there can't be any inherent rights for human beings just as there can't be any inherent rights for any being.

I think what you are talking about is what we as humans, intelligent group animals with empathy, recognize as rights that humans (and animals in some cases) should have independent on the strain/hardship it puts on the rest of society.

China which is rooted in a deeply in a community first philosophy of course have less such views, although as they are growing richer and communicating more with western countries, they are gradually changing. Of course, it will probably take a long time, but you can actually see small seeds being planted already.

US is probably not the best places to be talking about "inherent" human rights though. The death penalty is completly unneeded and a big violation to many people. Slashdot is another place that is very selective on human rights. Economic liberterianism is very similar to the chinese view, sacrifice individuals for the greater good, although libertarianism and China defines "greater good" quite differently.

Let's also set this straight, China does notforce their citizens to have one child. They strongly encourage it.

If a Chinese couple wishes to have an additional child, they have to pay a heavy fee as penalty, this is used as a deterrent. Additionally, the one child rule is largely ignored in the more remote parts of the country.

I applaud China's effort to control the population. If other Governments don't fo

As predicted yesterday, [slashdot.org] today's announcement indicates that the negotiations have come to a satisfactory conclusions. All the minor gods in the pantheon of Chinese Government have been propitiated and the company executives have been put in their place.